


Static

by PSebae



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen, Ghost Hunters, Ghosts, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12889086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PSebae/pseuds/PSebae
Summary: Ocelot's been asked to investigate some spooky happenings on the base, he doesn't really think anything is going on, but he enlists Quiet's help to try and put peoples' minds at ease. It doesn't quite go to plan.





	Static

“Quiet! Oh good, you are here.” Ocelot trotted down the metal stairs, heels clanging on steel loudly in the hollow space. Quiet uncrossed and recrossed her legs, but otherwise seemed to ignore him. He didn’t let this dissuade him. He pushed his hair back from his forehead with both hands, smoothing it back neatly for all of a few seconds before it flopped back in front of his eyes, and opened his mouth. Then shut it. Then tried again, as if he couldn’t quite get his thoughts out. Finally he said: “Is that a Playboy?”  
Quiet looked up at him, then down at the magazine on her lap like she’d never seen it before. She pointed at the article on the open page. Ocelot raised his eyebrows sceptically.  
“I’ll believe you’re reading it for the articles, on the day you respond to anything I ask you to read.”  
She shrugged and waved a hand at him, inviting him to continue with whatever it was he’d come down here for in the first place.

“Okay.” He said, seemingly more to steady himself than for her benefit. “There’s something strange been going on, allegedly, ever since that AI pod was brought onto the base.”  
Quiet frowned.  
“The crew on the R&D platform say as much anyway. They want it looked into.”  
She shrugged.  
“I need someone with patience.” Quiet laughed. “And yes, I know, they’re rare around here. Which is why I’m talking to you.” She turned back to the article. “There might be ghosts involved.”  
She looked back up again, squinting at him.  
“I’m probably kidding, but that’s what they’re saying.” He took a half step back as Quiet got up and stood opposite him, arms crossed and a highly sceptical look on her face. “You want more information?”  
Dark markings flashed over her eyes in annoyance, he grinned.  
“The Pod was brought onto the base, and started up, and ever since then there’s, apparently, been humanoid figures seen on the R&D platform.” Quiet gave a vague gesture and soft noise that may have meant ‘like what?’ and may have meant ‘there Are people on that platform.’  
“In unusual places, walking along the ventilation pipes, on top of the masts, in the shadows down in the Pit. I told them I’d find out if it was you or Snake since both of you are inclined to that sort of thing, but Snake says he’s not been up to anything and I was on my way here when I found out the latest story was from when both of you were off base anyway.”

She rubbed the back off her neck, and shoved open the metal door and started up the stairs.  
“Is that a ‘yes’?” He asked after her. She shrugged and he hurried after her. “I don’t tend to believe in the paranormal, but I figured it would at least be worth checking out, just to put their minds at ease. Could be a real threat, even if it’s not a real ghost.”  
He paused as he fell into step with her, giving her time to give him a curious look.  
“I think they’re just hearing that thing talking to itself and imagining the rest, myself.”  
Quite stopped walking, he did too and waited for whatever she wanted to get across. She thought for a while then gestured to him, and shook her head.  
“I don’t follow.”  
Frustration. She stalked off towards the jeep that would take them to the R&D platform, Ocelot made her move over to the passenger seat.  
“I trust you behind the wheel almost as much as I trust Snake.” He laughed at her furious expression. “Okay, slightly more than I trust him actually, which still means I don’t trust you not to drive me into the sea.” She fished a cassette out of her belt and put it into the vehicle, turning the volume up high enough to make Ocelot wince.

\-----

The atmosphere on the R&D deck was notably tense when they got there. That may however had been due to the car blaring out Man Eater at top volume, the presence of Quiet herself or one of their commanding officers being on deck. Ocelot refused to take it as evidence of anything supernatural. Quiet peered around curiously as she got out of the car. The idea that their brand new base was haunted had been laughable to her, but she had to admit the R&D deck wasn’t unspooky. The building was a dark obelisk tangled in a network of catwalks, stairs, shafts, pipes and vents. Run through with passages that were cast in deep shadow even during the hight of the day. Some of the early morning mist was still clinging to the buildings. In the middle of the buildings was a deep trough used for various experiments, but currently holding the large AI pod taken from Huey’s lab. Occasionally, when the wind blew just right, you could hear the slightly tinny melancholy voice that it emitted.

They climbed up into the spider web of walkways and up to the top deck, where a nervous looking man pointed them towards the corner where the Peace Walker’s AI pod sat. People were refusing to go near it these days, and Snake wasn’t much of a role model, it unnerved him. Asked him who he was or something.

“It’s not that disturbing.” Ocelot said as he climbed down into the Pit. Quiet jumped down and he had to hold that thought until he’d caught up. “It’s just a computer. It repeats things it’s heard. I think…” She quirked an eyebrow at him.  
“Okay some things are a bit… Strange. I’ll admit.” They looked up at the cylinder. It blinked its red lights at them. “Venom said it knew he wasn’t John. I don’t know if I believe that but--” he shrugged. “Well Strangelove is dead and she’s the only one who could answer those questions. Dissecting this thing isn’t one of our top priorities, as long as we keep it out of the hands of people who might abuse it. Still… None of them want to just shut it down. I wonder why.”  
They gazed up at it as it whispered to itself, hauntingly familiar words that, Ocelot bitterly reflected, had never been aimed at him.  
“Snake...” the woman’s voice murmured.  
Ocelot gestured at it. “There’s your ghost.” He turned to Quiet, but she was staring past him up at the ledge of the Pit.

He looked up and squinted against the sun.  
“Who’s that?”  
She shook her head and when Ocelot looked back up, the figure was gone.

No one was comforted by Ocelot’s assurance that they were almost certainly just getting unnerved by the AI, since apparently the Really Weird stuff all happened at night anyway. He promised to return and see what happened that night, but really unless someone is getting harmed they may need to learn to just live with their new ghosts.

\-----

Shove. “Uf.”  
Shove. “Uf.”   
SHOVE. “Uuugh.”

Ocelot looked up at Quiet. Who shoved him one more time for good measure.  
“Did something happen?” He mumbled, shaking off sleep.  
She shook her head.  
“Why did you wake me up?”  
She pointed at a small group of troops down below. Ah yes, keeping up appearances was good for morale.  
Ocelot shrugged the blanket up around his shoulders and looked out from their catwalk, across the confusing corridors between the buildings. The golden sodium lamps threw fiery light across them, leaving stark shadows that could be hiding anything. But mostly hid the occasional member of the night staff, and for a while D.D., who’d sat on one of the lower platforms and gazed lovingly up at them and wagged his tail for a good ten minutes, before someone lured him away with snacks.

Quiet made a soft grumbling noise and Ocelot nodded.  
“Yeah I’m bored too. This is ridiculous.”  
He ignored her scowl, he’d been the one napping.  
“Any ghosts out there?” He said a bit louder. “Might want to show your face!”  
Quiet snorted.  
“Damn this.” Ocelot mumbled, rearranging his blanket. “Nothing is going to happen. It’s all--” But whatever it was he thought it was, Quiet never found out, because he chose this time to flop back onto the catwalk and look up at the grating above them and scream.

She jumped to her feet and bounded up onto the platform above them when he pointed, but when she got there there was nothing to be seen. She crouched down and peered at Ocelot from through the grating.  
“Did you see her-it?” he said horsely, and cleared his throat. “I mean, was there someone there?”   
She shook her head.  
“I saw a face...” He said softly. She pointed at hers. Ocelot licked his lips. Her face was lit up in gold by the lights. “There’s no where anyone could run off too?” She shook her head then pointed at her ear. “Yeah I didn’t hear anything either.”  
She jumped back down.  
“It looked like...” He trailed off and she pointed at the blanket. He stared at it. “Yeah you’re right, I was still half asleep.”

If he’d been intending to sleep through the night that idea had been spooked out of his head. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and shuffled closer to the wall to keep his back to it. Any time Quiet glanced at him his eyes were glittering in the lamp light and staring out into the night.

She didn’t let on, but Ocelot’s reaction had made her skin crawl. In all the time she’d known him she’d never thought of him as a man easily spooked by illusions and shadows. Was that really the remains of a nightmare? Or had he really seen something that had scared him? She glared at a soldier walking past, and he picked up the pace. For good measure she put her middle finger up at the air in general, daring anything watching them to pick a fight. Ocelot chuckled. The tension bowed, but failed to break. The hairs on the backs of their necks slowly rose.

\-----

Some time in the small hours Ocelot had forced himself to laugh, painfully loud in Quiet’s ears, and told her nothing was going to happen. It was all rubbish and they were just creeping themselves out, jumping at shadows. They should move. So they’d climbed up onto the highest walkways, startling a soldier, and settled down on the edge of the building to watch the stars and a narrow sliver of moon through the thin clouds, glittering off the waves. 

Shortly thereafter Quiet felt Ocelot slide down against her shoulder, and when she turned to look he just blinked sleepily and started to sit back up. Her lips twitched and she tugged him back. Within twenty minutes he was sleeping. She continued to keep watch, eyes scouring across the visible deck for any sign of what it was that had scared him before. Eventually her eyes were drawn back to him and she leant over slightly to peer at his slack face, grizzled grey in the silver light, shadows under his eyes. Just a man. Worked too hard. She went to blow a strand of hair from his face, but couldn’t. Her expression turned sour and she looked away again, back down to the sea which was starting to turn inky dark as the clouds gathered, threatening rain. She grimaced again at the sparks of light dancing over the surface and reached around to pull the blanket up over Ocelot’s shoulders in case of mist, or one of those sudden squalls that happened out here.

Unable to rest her eyes on anything much that didn’t make her inhuman skin crawl she finally craned her neck to look down into the Pit behind them. There was someone down there. She watched them curiously, as they were not wearing any Diamond Dog uniform she recognised. She considered waking up Ocelot, but she found herself unable to move, fixed in place, her extraordinary eyes unable to see anything but this lone figure moving slowly through the deep shadows of the Pit towards the morbid red lights of the AI pod. There was something uncanny about the way it moved, but try as she might she couldn’t arrange her thoughts. The world was static: white noise and stillness. The night turned the world grey, but in the corners of her eyes she saw fire. Her jaw muscles twitched, she tried to scream to wake up Ocelot. Fire. Fire! Alert! But she couldn’t move. Her abdomen clenched, trying to stir up a stomach that no longer existed. She forced herself to blink, it didn’t help the ringing in her ears but the fire came into focus. Lights for the helicopters, locked doors, information signs, the glow from the sodium lamps below, normal, every day, familiar lights. She blinked again and now the figure’s odd movements came to a halt. It turned and raised its hands pulling back a hood that had obscured its face.

Quiet flinched hard enough to wake Ocelot. He sat up with a croaking “Wut?” and coughed. The spell was broken, the world started to move again, the ringing sound went away, the sky was tattered with light airy clouds, the moon shone thin and pale. There was no fire, there was no rain. She turned to him, mouth slightly open and eyes wide.  
“What?” He asked again, eyebrows knotting in worry. “Did you see something?”  
She licked her lips. Even if she’d been willing to speak, she wasn’t sure how to tell him what she’d seen without sounding like she’d lost her marbles. The creeping fires of hell rising around them as phantom rain drew in from the dark sea. The twitching man, making his way to the whispering machine in the dark Pit, who’d turned and looked right at her, with Ocelot’s face.


End file.
